OUR VALUES

WHO WE ARE

Wooden Spoon is a charity that changes children’s lives through the power of rugby. Each year we fund around 70 projects, from community programmes and specialist playgrounds to medical treatment centres and sensory rooms. Since 1983, we’ve distributed over £26 million to more than 700 projects, helping more than a million children.

OUR HISTORY

The woeful performance of England during the 1983 Five Nations Rugby Championship left an unexpected but wonderful legacy.

After watching their side condemned to the bottom of the tournament table with a 25-15 defeat to Ireland at Landsdowne Road, five England supporters seeking solace in a Dublin bar were presented with a wooden spoon, wrapped in an Irish scarf, on a silver platter.

Accepting the gift with good humour and grace, the group – which included Wooden Spoon’s now-president Peter Scott – resolved to hold a golf match to see who would have the honour of keeping the tongue-in-cheek gift.

Just a few months later, the round at Farnham Golf Club in Surrey raised more than £8,500, with the money used to provide a new minibus for a local special needs school.

Stirred into action by a rugby routing, Wooden Spoon was born and we have been supporting disadvantaged and disabled children ever since.